Mission Report
by Xandrabelle
Summary: Reno and Rude return from a mission with an interesting story to tell Rufus.


"What's so important that I need to drop what I'm doing to listen to this mission report?" asked Rufus Shinra as he watched his motley crew of Turks file into his office.

There was a collective pause before the men arranged themselves; Rude slid over beside the door tugging at his collar in obvious embarrassment, Tseng, settling himself to the side with a clear view of both Rufus and the other Turks, and finally, Reno, slinked before the desk, mag-rod slung casually behind his shoulder.

"It's all Rude's fault," Reno grumbled militantly.

The snort by the door showed how much Reno's partner agreed with that statement.

"I thought you guys were just going to deliver the contract I signed to Dickson?" Rufus said, mystified as to how something so simple could have been a problem. "Did you not deliver it?"

"Oh we delivered it all right, but its Rude's fault we were late."

"'s'not my fault. _You_ were the one stuck in the bathroom for an hour using up all the hot water."

So that was why Elena was so mad earlier. The statement from Rude was more than Rufus had heard him say in days but it still left him clueless as to why his Turks were before him, behaving like a bunch of kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

"And you had to ninja your way into my bathroom and make me drop my soap," Reno yelled.

"Well its your fault you had to try to catch it and fall over on your wrist," Rude argued back.

"Hey, a man's gotta have his soap and you made me sprain my wrist!"

Maybe not the cookie jar. More like their pants down, Rufus amended. To be honest, Rufus didn't think Reno minded being interrupted all that much. He seemed more hung up about his hurt wrist than Rude's actions. Rufus knew how important his wrist was to Reno. All of Shinra knew just how much Reno used that wrist.

Rufus held up a hand to stop this odd tangent in the conversation from going further. "Reno, I fail to see how Rude's ability to ninja into your bathroom and make you drop your soap has any relevance to the two of you delivering the contract to Dickson!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Rufus spotted Tseng looking disappointed that he'd stopped them.

"But it made us late!" Reno said, as if that explained everything.

Rufus raised his eyebrow in skeptical question. "How does that matter?" Honestly, trying to get a straight report from these two was like pulling teeth without anesthesia.

"Because by the time we bandaged up my wrist and made it over to Dickson, there was a body in his office," Reno replied, with a wild wave of said bandaged wrist.

Nice wrist action, Rufus thought irrelevantly before homing in to the crux of Reno's answer.

"Dead body?"

"Very." The tips of Rude's mouth were turned down in glum confirmation.

"Dude had a knife stuck in the center of his chest, so yeah, he was dead."

Rufus resisted the urge to rub his eyes in resignation. "Ah, I was wondering when the dead bodies were going to show up." Some habits were really hard to break.

"Hey there was only one body," Reno defended, as if that made any difference. "And we had nothing to do with it being dead."

Rufus privately thought Reno's outrage hinged more in that particular fact than the gruesome discovery. He was probably offended someone else had gotten the jump in.

"So you got there and found Dickson dead," Rufus said to clarify. Now this was more than inconvenient. Good contractors were hard to find.

"Nah, dude wasn't Dickson." Reno shook his head with a grin.

Oh goody.

"So where was Dickson?" Rufus refrained from grinding his teeth. He knew he'd have nothing but gums within a year if he got into the habit.

"Hiding behind his desk."

"More like cowering," Rude amended helpfully.

"So you delivered the contract?" Rufus was single minded like that. He had to be to get anywhere with henchmen like these.

"Uh huh, signed and sealed."

Well that was a relief.

"Was there anything else?" Rufus regretted it the moment he asked.

"Yeah, Dickson wanted us to get rid of the body," Reno answered with a happy bounce. "Because we're professional."

Ah, nothing like flattery to motivate the redhead.

"And you agreed? For free?" For Rufus, business was business.

Reno huffed as if offended Rufus thought he forgot to charge.

"Tseng's fixing up the payment," Rude supplied with a reassuring nod. Obviously someone had to pay attention to the little details.

"Okay, so you guys got rid of the body. This is not coming back to bite us on the ass, right?" Rufus was going to be displeased if it did. His tone indicated that it wouldn't be displeasure in the no bonus sort of way but more in the broken kneecaps way.

Reno shrugged, entirely unintimidated. Rufus was a pushover for his Turks.

"Nah we took it out of the city and blew it up with one of Rude's bombs."

"How... fun?" Rufus asked uncertainly. Living with these guys for as long as he did, he still wasn't entirely sure about the boundaries of their fun.

"Was good bomb," Rude praised succinctly.

"Yeeeah," Reno agreed, with an expression almost too akin to orgasmic. There were probably rainbows involved.

Rufus stifled a whimper. He really didn't want to know what else they'd gotten into while blowing up a corpse. He waved weakly at the two of them in dismissal and watched them troop out.

"You know that's an hour of my life that I'll never get back," Rufus said, pouting at Tseng who'd remained behind.

"I thought I had to share," Tseng replied with his usual dry manner. "Just remember that I had to listen to that excruciating story... _Twice_."

Rufus stared at Tseng. His second in command had more fortitude than he ever suspected.

"Maybe next time I need something delivered, can we hire Cloud?" Rufus suggested hopefully. There were limits to how often he could listen to mission reports like today's.

"Don't you think that was more fun than watching a movie?" Tseng asked with disturbing blandness. "It had everything. Porn, dead bodies and explosions."

Rufus twitched. The Wutaian was also more sadistic than he'd ever suspected. Then a small smile cracked his face.

Tseng turned and left his president's office, enjoying the soft laughter echoing from the room behind him. Laughter was, after all, the best medicine.

Notes: I love the Turks, I really do. If you're wondering about the last sentence, this is set pre-AC, which means Rufus is ill from incurable Geostigma.


End file.
